Fish cannot feel pain say scientists
- Thread starter TommyR
- Start date
This isn't totally related, but comparative psychology, especially with animals like fish, is pretty interesting. I'm pretty sure that after being near a mirror long enough my puffer's learned to recognize itself. What if fish and other species become smarter with more mental stimulation?
I just had a look and I feel safe to call B.S. on this. First off the Josie Ensor is not a science reporter, and lacks the skills to take a strong journalistic approach towards scientifically published papers. Second what she reported as a "study" that proves fish dont feel pain was only a "review".
A study is when scientifically trained people collect data by performing tests on a falsifiable hypothesis. This is when the actual experiments are performed.
A review is when you collect the results from multiple studies and make a judgement regarding the outcome of those studies.
Basically the review determined that the evidence that fish could feel pain was not strong enough. Wait a minute, this was a review of studies that had evidence that fish could feel pain. What? Something fishy is going on here.
Here is where reviews can run into problems. How were the studies selected for this review, could this be a group of just the weaker positive studies? Did the reviewers of the studies already have a biased opinion? Who funded the study? Would it not be detrimental to the sport fishing industry if it was determined that fish indeed felt pain?
If anybody here would like to research the above questions and report back, here is a link to the published review.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/faf.12010/abstract
A study is when scientifically trained people collect data by performing tests on a falsifiable hypothesis. This is when the actual experiments are performed.
A review is when you collect the results from multiple studies and make a judgement regarding the outcome of those studies.
Basically the review determined that the evidence that fish could feel pain was not strong enough. Wait a minute, this was a review of studies that had evidence that fish could feel pain. What? Something fishy is going on here.
Here is where reviews can run into problems. How were the studies selected for this review, could this be a group of just the weaker positive studies? Did the reviewers of the studies already have a biased opinion? Who funded the study? Would it not be detrimental to the sport fishing industry if it was determined that fish indeed felt pain?
If anybody here would like to research the above questions and report back, here is a link to the published review.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/faf.12010/abstract
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